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Sep 24, 2007

Just a mile or so out of Boring, Maryland sits Piney Grove Church & School. The town of Piney Grove dates from the 18th century and had always been a free Black community. The schoolhouse has been educating children since the 1870's (at least), though today it serves as a community building.

Author Louis Diggs writes: The most significant point of the book is that though there were many Black families residing in Piney Grove as far back as the 1700s, and that many Black families owned their own homes and farms, yet today there is not one single Black family now residing there - this is the primary reason for the title of my book, "Holding On To Their Heritage." Blacks still own property there, but none reside there. You can read more about his book here.

We are starting to notice a pattern of segregation in our travels around Maryland. It seems like the larger towns were segregated by race within the town, while the smaller villages were entirely segregated. So with Boring, you also have Piney Grove, with Fallston, Benson. I can't say this with any authority, it's just something we recently noticed.

If you're researching a small town, it is always useful to visit the area around the town as well - it may have a sibling.